It is odd that the owners chose that name, since the ‘climax’ in theatrs for Meister and Freuler was opend the same year in the form of the BUTTERFLY, that remarkable facade on downtown’s main street of a huge butterfly in light bulbs. It is profiled on this site.

The 1945 Milwaukee city directory lists a German Kino Radio Theater on 2459 W. Fond du Lac in Milwaukee. I’m wondering if this was a house just for radio production and not for films. If so, it wouldn’t qualify to be added here.

Fire charred the interior of the former Climax Theater on Milwaukee’s near northwest side Monday night.
Battalion Fire Chief Alvin Hainke said the blaze began in a former offstage dressing room at the theater which has been vacant for a considerable time. There was no immediate damage estimate.

There is a rare if modest 1915 photo of the exterior of the CLIMAX taken from Motion Picture World in the Wisconsin Theatres forum at www.onelist.com/group/WisconsinTheatres . An unusual theatre, not foursquare at all as you’ll see, which I saw in 1962-1963, but the ornamentation visible in the photo was already slathered over by what looked like plaster slurry.

A Golden Toned Barton Theater Pipe Organ 2/, manual/, keyboards/, was shipped by the Barton Organ Company of Oshkosh, Wisconsin. How many /ranks, /sets of pipes, what year was it shipped to the Climax, and what happened to the organ?